1981 Toyota Starlet

[irowiki]

Went out to go take a look she was at a wrecking yard for sale. Was considering it because they are so rare! They want $1,000 or best offer, but she's way too rough for anything over $400. RWD, 1.3L

Some of the car was shared with the first gen tercel!


Yes, those are buttons all over the car.

[ARCHINSTL]

Those are hot for all sorts of unbelievable mods! Unless it's a complete rustbucket underneath, I'm surprised someone has not snapped it up!
Tom M.

[irowiki]

Oh, what sort of mods?

[ARCHINSTL]

All sorts of different engines, brakes, rear axles.
I think the big attraction is RWD only and, like our cars, is simple to work on. Possibly a RWD car is more amenable to raising or lowering than a FWD car (guessing here, though).
PLUS - the KP61 Starlet only weighed less than 1700 pounds! About 800 pounds less than our 4WD cars! Heck, even our stock 62-HP engines would make a screamer out of them, let alone some the big honker Toy engines!
Tom M.

[Petros]

here is a very impressive 4age engine install in a toyota starlet, it was also all stripped for racing, two seats and a bare metal inteiror.

this is a really inspiring install! it was at the Puget sound toy owners association meet several years ago.

[dlb]

ewww, that car is gross beyond words. those seat covers are probably festering with all sorts of skin infections, and the buttons are so weird and gross in an unexplainable way too...like the eyes of rotten old teddy bears or something.

4k-c, never heard of that engine. 1.3 is pretty small. i bet it's fun to drive, stock or otherwise.

[irowiki]

We didn't actually test drive it yet. It's about 75 minutes away from us. We're tempted to go see how it starts and drives and see how low of an offer they'd take, buy it, see how it does on fuel economy etc, clean it up real good, and flip it if we don't like it.

We'll see

[Petros]

do not buy that car with the idea you will flip it, parts to make it a decent daily driver will be hard to find (some not too bad, other nearly impossible). VEry few would appreciate it, it is not a classic and rather primitive compared to cars that came soon after. It will not bring a good price just because is it economical, it is very old and most would not want a daily driver this out of date.

t he only reason to get it is because you have some strange affinity for nostalgic vintage import cars. there was nothing special about this car, it hit the market here when there was long gas lines because of government bungling and attempting to "manage" the fuel supply. They are not particular safe, nor comfortable, nor pleasant to drive (rather noisy actually). It had an all plastic interior. for which good looking parts will be hard to find, most have turned to dust by now, and they were not good looking even when new. The number of people that would consider a car like this are a very small segment that would see it as a nostalgic buy to remember their first car. and those types are mostly getting too old to be able to drive. STAY AWAY from it, it is way too much money for what it is.

[irowiki]

The idea would be to buy it super cheap ($300), clean it up, and put it on ebay, someone who wants the body for racing and swapping engines might want it.

I'd be curious at the fuel economy too!

[Petros]

The idea would be to buy it super cheap ($300), clean it up, and put it on ebay, someone who wants the body for racing and swapping engines might want it.

I'd be curious at the fuel economy too!

None of those are good enough reasons to take on a project. I used to buy up all kinds of interesting projects I would find, I had then stuck in all kinds of places, friends back yards, storage garages,etc. I did a realistic estimate of how much time it would take to get them all running and cleaned up, over 1000 hours, and that was before I had a wife and children. I unloaded them all except the one I wanted for my daily driver. you have a family, there is nothing worth doing on this old econo-box. It has no nostalgia for you, just put it out of your mind. Focus, stay focused on your goal! There are way more interesting project out there than you will ever have time to do, particularly if you want to see your kids grow and stay married.

Besides, you will find that really nice Tercel4wd or even Corolla all-track soon, that would be worth putting your effort into, and worth keeping. Both are qualty cars that you can flip because there is an active market in them if you change your mind.

[irowiki]

Hey I can dream! Besides the Starlet is cute!

I doubt the wrecking yard will go any lower anyway, they seemed pretty set on $1,000.